Woman finds her photos were stolen for fake dating profile

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) -- Social media scams are on the rise. An Overland Park woman learned that the hard was when she became the victim of what police call a catfish con.

Chrissy Smith was walking out of the Plaza Medical Building at 311 Nichols Road when a stranger began calling her name.

"And I am like, 'I am sorry, do I know you?' and he looked up at me, kind of startled and he's like, 'yes, you know me.'" Smith recalled. "And I am like, 'okay, where have we met?' And he said to me, 'are you going to play this game, seriously?'"

The game had been played on both Smith and the man who thought he knew her.

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Woman's stolen photos used to create fake dating profile

A Missouri woman says she was walking out of a building when a stranger began calling her name. The man claimed he had met her but she didn’t recognize him. That’s when they both realized a scammer had been using her name and photos for a fake dating profile.

A Missouri woman says she was walking out of a building when a stranger began calling her name. The man claimed he had met her but she didn’t recognize him. That’s when they both realized a scammer had been using her name and photos for a fake dating profile.

A Missouri woman says she was walking out of a building when a stranger began calling her name. The man claimed he had met her but she didn’t recognize him. That’s when they both realized a scammer had been using her name and photos for a fake dating profile.

A Missouri woman says she was walking out of a building when a stranger began calling her name. The man claimed he had met her but she didn’t recognize him. That’s when they both realized a scammer had been using her name and photos for a fake dating profile.

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The man had been talking to who he thought was Chrissy Smith on the dating site Plenty of Fish, but Smith said she does not and never has had a profile on that site.

The man showed her the Plenty of Fish profile with her name, her Facebook profile picture, and a month's worth of conversations. The scammer even sent the man a nude body photo which Smith said is not her.

The man told Smith that the two even set up a date, but Smith never showed up.

"But then he was kind of upset that I stood him up," she said. "Thank God he was normal, and that he was not a crazy madman that could have done something to me."

"We've seen this before," said Ofc. John Lacy with Overland Park police, warning that social media users should protect themselves by increasing their privacy settings or even removing their profile photos. "Put a picture of their dog, or better yet, put a picture of their favorite cartoon. A lot of police officers do that."

"I felt sorry for him because he said, you know, 'I thought that I might have found my soul mate,'" Smith said.

Smith said she contacted Plenty of Fish to get the profile taken down, and even had to send a copy of her driver's license, plus her email address and birthday, and even then it took another day to get the profile taken down.